Deer Fencing around the Central and Eastern lakes

Since finishing our upland path repair programme for the year we've been working lower down on the property. To date, much of our work has been in the National Trust owned woodlands in Ambleside, Windermere and Troutbeck.

Our first job was extending a deer exclosure at Common Wood just outside Windermere. We originally worked on the exclosure back in 2020 but it was decided that we should double its size.

The exclosure will allow the woodland to regenerate without any grazing by deer or sheep, which should give an opportunity for woodland flowers to come through without being nibbled off.

Deer Fence at Common Wood

Once we'd finished at Common Wood we moved on to Skelghyll Woods on the outskirts of Ambleside, which is home to some of the tallest trees in Cumbria. This area had recently had a considerable amount of Larch extracted so the deer fence will once again allow for natural regeneration of both trees and ground flora.

Skelghyll deer exclosure

As a bit of a break from deer fencing we spent a couple of days gathering slate from one of the National Trust's disused quarries near Coniston. The stone will be flown up onto Gowbarrow Fell later on in the year and will be used to build drains.

Trailer loaded with stone

Our final deer exclosure was at Hird Wood at the end of Troutbeck Valley, near Kirkstone. Here the predominantly Alder woodland has been freshly coppiced, which will allow more light into the fenced off area again helping to promote woodland flower growth. All the exclosures are a minimum of 50m x 50m and will remain in place for at least five years.

Deer Fence at Hird Wood

Just outside Hird Wood are the remains of Low Kingate stone circle. Few of the stones are still standing and three have been incorporated into a dry stone wall (two of which can be seen in the photo below). It would have originally been a concentric (two-ringed) circle with the inner circle standing upon a mound and the outer circle being about 20m in diameter. An unpolished stone axe was found at the site in 1893.

 

Hird Wood/Low Kingate stone circle

Path repairs at Dora's Field

Since our last update we've been busily working away in Dora's Field, at Rydal, just outside Ambleside. Our work was replacing some old slate steps with something that would be easier to walk on, would be in keeping with the garden and would also last indefinitely.

 The original path

We decided we'd use the same technique as we had in High Close gardens at the end of last year. We set to work digging in the large slates to form the front of the step, and filling in the back with smaller pieces of slate.

 After just over a weeks work

The idea was to get our work completed before the main show of Daffodils started to appear. This would cause the minimum amount of damage to them and give plenty of time for things to settle down before the National Gardens Scheme open day at the end of March (Details of which can be found here... Link).

 New section of path

While working there we actually spotted the first Daffodil coming into flower, along with a few Crocuses and lots of Snowdrops. There were still plenty more only just breaking through the soil though, so there should still be plenty in flower if you're planning a visit in the coming few weeks.

 Getting the levels right

The work was quite slow going as each stone had to be individually shaped by hand and the levels needed to be regularly checked to make a good surface to walk on.

 

Filling in the gaps

Once all the stonework was completed we filled in the gaps with a dry-mix of sand and cement to add extra strength to the whole path. This was later covered over with some soil to help everything blend in a little better.

 

 The new path before landscaping

Once this was all done, it was just a matter of tidying things up, we removed all the surplus stone and levelled off all the soil that had been dug out. Then finally we removed the tracks we'd created where we'd accessed the site with the power barrow. The whole project took us a little under five weeks to complete.

We're planning to return to Dora's Field next year and carry out some similar work on the other side of the path to complete the short circular route. This will make the site more accessible to a wider range of people to come and enjoy Wordsworth's Daffodils each spring.

Tidying up and landscaping

Much of the material costs for replacing the steps were paid for by a kind donation so we'd like to give our thanks. If you'd like to donate money towards our work in the Lake District just follow this link...Lake District Appeal. To discuss donating to a specific project such as our work at Dora's Field please contact Liz Guest on 015394 63806 or email liz.guest@nationaltrust.org.uk

Replacing steps at High Close

After completing our work at Allan Bank we recently moved on to some path repair work at High Close gardens, just outside Grasmere. The house and gardens at High Close date back to the mid-1800's when they were purchased by Edward Balme Wheatley-Balme, a Yorkshire merchant and philanthropist, and planted up with many rare trees and shrubs from all around the globe.

The estate was left to the National Trust in 1951 and the house was leased to the Youth Hostel Association shortly afterwards. Much of the garden has been in disrepair for many years but recently a National Trust volunteer group has taken ownership of the garden and cleared back areas of rhododendron and unearthed much of the original path network.

Steps in need of repair.

You can see in the photograph above some old steps in urgent need of repair. Much of this original work has at some point been dismantled and the stone removed, presumably to be used elsewhere on the estate. This is not uncommon, as slate is an expensive resource, so as the garden evolved, pathways would have changed and it would have been decided that the stone could be put to better use.

New steps after a few days work.

We decided that the work should be in keeping with the rest of the garden, so it was on obvious choice to use slate from the nearby quarry.

Steep incline where new steps need to be added.

The slate was all hand picked at the quarry and loaded into our trailer. From there we drove it the short distance up to High Close where it was then moved by power barrow to each of the areas that needed to be worked on.

New section of steps

To build the steps, we used two or three large rectangular stones as the front of each step. These were filled in behind with smaller stones built in courses, much in the same way as a drystone wall. All of the slate had to be hand finished with hammers to make it all fit together tidily.

Starting work on another section

It's been slow work, with each step taking roughly a day to construct, but the effect looks really good and in a few years time it should blend in seamlessly with the rest of the stonework in the garden.

Shaping a stone

There's still plenty of work to be done in the gardens, and we're likely to be spending more time here in future years. To see some of the fantastic work that the volunteers have been doing to help restore High Close gardens click on the following link...Album of High Close garden restoration work

Herringbone pitching at Aira Force

After finishing our fencing job at Stickle Ghyll we've spent much of our time repairing a section of footpath over at Aira Force. We'd already moved all the materials, by helicopter, earlier on in the year, so it was just a matter of getting ourselves and our tools to site.

Before starting work

As you can see in the photo above, the original path has become quite badly eroded. It's also right next to a steep drop, so it was decided that we should create a new path further to the right and landscape the old path to blend in with it's surroundings.

The first job was to move the slate from the helicopter drop site to where it was required. We used our mechanical power barrow to make things a bit easier and it wasn't long until we had enough stone to work with.

The rock now moved to site

As we wanted to be able to secure rock for any future work (and there's a lack of quality pitching stone in the area) we decided to use slate rather than stone gathered from the fell. Aira Force is also a more formal environment than our usual places of work so we thought that we'd use a slightly different technique, known as herringbone pitching, that would be more in keeping.

Starting the new path

Basically, the path is created by a series of courses (similar to that of a drystone wall), with the slate sunk depth-wise into the ground. The first course ends with the the last stone a little higher out of the ground than all the others (this will be the start of the next step). The next course ends with two stones higher, the third course has three stones higher and so on. After a while you're left with a series of triangular steps as you can see in the photograph below.

Herringbone style pitching

It's almost as difficult to build as it is difficult to explain, but eventually once we all started to get our heads around it, the path really started to take shape.

The first section completed

Once all the stone work was done it was time to start on a section of gravelled path.

The line of the new gravel path

Firstly a tray to contain the gravel was dug out. All the soil removed was placed on the old footpath and the turf kept to one side to be used later on in landscaping the process.

Digging off the turf

Once the digging was finished it was time to start gravelling. The plan was to move the gravel in our "trusty" power barrow but after prising it off the frozen ground with crowbars it decided it didn't want to start so we moved all the gravel (about 6 tonnes) by hand. This was done by a combination of carrying it in rubber trugs and dragging it onto the path in the helicopter bags that were used to fly it to site.

Starting gravelling

Eventually all the gravel was moved and and the gravel path was joined up to the stone footpath.

Finishing off the gravelled path

All that was left to do was to landscape the old path with rubble, soil, boulders and turf so that walkers would now instinctively take the new route.